Slim Tuba HT Trials

[Bruce Weldy]

The speaker screws in from the other side.....why are you trying to put a screw under there?

[kenkenni]

Thanks Bruce that is good to know. I thought they screwed in from the bottom for some reason. You
just saved me a lot of worrying. I can't believe I was thinking they go in the bottom. And now that you
brought that up I would have been trying to secure eight screws from the bottom. Gosh I'm dumb!

[Tom Smit]

Two more braces and then
the grand finale: attaching the second side. Gonna need some good advice from you guys on
this part.

Lay the second side on the cab and square it up. Drill a hole in each corner. Get four nails and cut the head off and put a nail in the hole. PL the panels, lay the second side down over the nails, screw it down and pull out the headless nails.

[kenkenni]

Thats exactly what I ended up doing Tom except I didn't cut the heads off. I have squared all the edges and it looks good.
I will take one more look at the inside panels to make sure I will have an airtight cabin. My PL squeeze out did a
good job of sealing up all the gaps. Nothing gets in or out from the looks of things. I do have one slight issue, though.
This thing is heavy now. Trying to get this thing upstairs after it's all done is going to be challenging and the driver is not
even secured in it yet. Has anybody ever built handles into their THT? I'm thinking about installing some wheels on the
bottom, but don't want them rattling. So, I'm brainstorming different options right now cause I occasionally move my room
around and the sub should be easily moved with everything else.

[DJPhatman]

This thing is heavy now. Trying to get this thing upstairs after it's all done is going to be challenging and the driver is not
even secured in it yet. Has anybody ever built handles into their THT? I'm thinking about installing some wheels on the
bottom, but don't want them rattling. So, I'm brainstorming different options right now cause I occasionally move my room
around and the sub should be easily moved with everything else.

Get a hand truck. I picked up a real useful one at Home Depot for under US$85.

This one.

[kenkenni]

Thanks for that Phatman. I do have one already. I was thinking something a little more custom maybe, like
a wheeled base with high density foam on the bottom that I can sit the sub on. Just an idea.

[kenkenni]

I can't wait to fire this up for the first time. Just gotta wait for the PL to cure.

My SPA-250 plate amp has spade speaker connectors on the back. My Dayton
sub has push-pin connectors. Can I just cut the spade ends of the amp wires and
connect the bare wire to the sub connectors, or is there another way?

[MissileCrisis]

I can't wait to fire this up for the first time. Just gotta wait for the PL to cure.

My SPA-250 plate amp has spade speaker connectors on the back. My Dayton
sub has push-pin connectors. Can I just cut the spade ends of the amp wires and
connect the bare wire to the sub connectors, or is there another way?

If your sub only has compression type connectors that's what I'd do, otherwise I'd try to go with bananas for the sub side and spades for the amp.

[Michael M]

kenkenni,

What part of Atlanta do you live in? I'm looking to build a Tuba HT but I'd sure like to hear/feel one first. I'm in Gwinnett.

[Grant Bunter]

My SPA-250 plate amp has spade speaker connectors on the back. My Dayton
sub has push-pin connectors. Can I just cut the spade ends of the amp wires and
connect the bare wire to the sub connectors, or is there another way?

If you mean your driver (or the cab terminals) has push in button type pin connectors, cut off the spade connectors on that end, strip back the wire about 3/8" (or 10mm) and tin them with your soldering iron before inserting, rather than just having bare wire...

[MissileCrisis]

What grant said
+1

[kenkenni]

To Michael: I am in Powder Springs,Ga

Everyone else: I ended up cutting the amp spade ends off and attaching direct to the
sub woofer. The sub has the compression type terminals.

I finally completed the build and like everyone else on here I couldn't wait to see if all of
my hard work paid off. I am happy to say yes, it did! As soon as I took about 250 lbs of
miscellaneous items off the top to help with the final sealing I installed the amp and attached
and secured the access panel. I took it inside the living room and ran an RCA pre-out cable
from the home theater receiver to the plate amp left mono in. I was anxious so I just grabbed
any DVD I could see in sight, which was the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". I set the frequency
to about 100-120ish and adjusted the gain and sat and waited to be amazed. The sounds of the
plane turbulence, thunder, tornado all sounded perfect. The bass was very clean and not distorted
or muddy sounding at all. Things in the living room were rattling.I had to listen at a low level though
because I was afraid of my LCD falling off the wall above the fireplace. I stepped outside for a second
and it actually felt like there was a thunderstorm inside the house. I sat and watched the whole movie and
enjoyed what I had accomplished. I also would like to mention that there were absolutely no air leaks
even with the terminal cup and plate amp attached. These items were sealed with a sticky-back high-density
foam roll of weather strip that was compressed and expanded when the screws were tightened. Nothing
is getting in or out. Trust me on that. I checked multiple times.

After the movie it was time to see what it's musical capabilities were so I turned on the tuner in my home
theater receiver and the lows it was hitting on my urban radio stations was unbelievable. Very deep and
pronounced when it needed to be. That was just the tuner though, I'll have to test it with my DJ setup
later. I believe it will not disappoint.

Couldn't marvel at it for too long as I still have a lot of finishing work to do on the exterior so I had to disconnect
everything and lug the sub outside. Did I tell you this thing is really heavy, not to mention I will have to get this
upstairs to my room. I do have a dolly and a ratchet strap to help with that though, but I am still thinking about
adding wheels to the base so I can move it across the carpet easier once it's upstairs.

Here are some pre-beauty pictures. I will be finishing this off well into next week and will present to the BFM fans
the final result.









I have a lot of wood filling and sanding to do next.

[kenkenni]

Are most of you guys using Duratex to finish your Tuba HTs or something else?

[MissileCrisis]

Are most of you guys using Duratex to finish your Tuba HTs or something else?

Out of all the THT's I've seen on the forum people Tend to go either no finish or duratex. I would use duratex. My 2c.

[Radian]

Clear polyurethane over black. My first attempt to stain BB was a folly.
http://billfitzmaurice.info/forum/viewt ... hilit=slim